David Einhorn Has Been Busy Buying Apple

With hedge funds around him making cuts in the company, David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital increased his stake in Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) by nearly 50 percent in the last quarter of last year. Greenlight has been in the news lately for having filed a lawsuit against Apple in an attempt to stop the company from voting in limitations on issuing preferred stock.

Einhorn said he instead wants Apple to start issuing perpetual preferred stock with a 4 percent yield. While the company responded by saying it would consider this part of his recommendation, it has pledged to fight his opposition to the proxy proposal.

Apple’s shares took a massive stumble last quarter, falling more than 20 percent as concerns about the company’s slowing growth rate, lowering margins, and increased competition rose. The stock is down an additional 12 percent so far this year. There have been reports of several hedge funds, including Leon Cooperman’s Omega Advisors, Thomas Steyer’s Farallon Capital, and Barry Rosenstein’s Jana Partners, cutting down their Apple holdings by large percentages.

However, Greenlight, which has owned Apple shares since 2010, raised its holdings in the company by 46 percent to 1.6 million shares, including those 275,000 call options, regulatory filings showed. Einhorn spoke with Apple chief executive Tim Cook and finance chief Peter Oppenheimer about increasing returns to investors before filing the lawsuit.
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Greenlight also bought 39,000 new shares in Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), whose stock price has risen about 18 percent in the past six months. The fund’s total U.S. stock investments were worth $6.38 billion at the end of the fourth quarter, up from $6 billion at the end of September.